Another Firebird project

[69TA]

Nice! Love to see more birds flying in the sea of Camaros!

[LeighP]

Cool stuff....love the Pontiacs.

[rickpaw]

Quick update. I picked up the fenders/doors/deck lid from media blaster. No rust on the panels, although there are some damaged areas that had been gone over with bondo.

$10 GM fenders from swap meet. Some filler work needed, but nothing too major


perfect driverside door


Some work needed on pass side door, but no rust.


These doors come out much better than the ones that came with the car.

Tu

[Josue]

Good stuff!

If you don't mind me asking, how much did that blasting run you? Also, what did they use on it?

[rickpaw]

Been doing some filler work on the roof. It appeared the car had gone through some hail damage, or someone stored something heavy on the roof, as there are a lot of small dents over the roof. The larger dents are toward the center, which unfortunately right over the roof braces so I can't hammer it out.

Will post pictures later.

Tu

PS: changed my mind on the C5 brakes. Will go with complete LS1 brake set up (front/rear), as I think the 12" rotors look just right with 17" TT2 wheels. So, I have a pair of C5 calipers available if anyone is interested.

[rickpaw]

Good stuff!

If you don't mind me asking, how much did that blasting run you? Also, what did they use on it?

Josue,

Sorry I didn't reply to you sooner. Some how I missed your question. The media blast cost me $240, which included the fenders, doors, trunk lid, core support, and cowl panel.

Tu

[rickpaw]

Been working slowly for the last month or so on the bird. Nothing too exciting. Just filler work and smoothing out body panels. Almost finish with the shell, kind of burned out on it so I started working on the doors and trunk lid. In retrospect, I should have replaced the roof and not have to deal with all the low spots on the original roof.

[rickpaw]

Some new parts also came in.

New LS1 rotors



New classic update wiring kit from American Autowire. Looks to be high quality stuff.

[rickpaw]

Bolted on the trunk lid and discovered a major boo-boo. It appeared that the filler panel between the back window and trunk lid shifted while I was gluing it on. There is major gap issue.

[rickpaw]

Here are some pictures of the gap. Looks like I need to weld in some filler rod to the trunk lid.







Also, been playing with my other hobby just to get a break from the bird.



Tu

[68400BIRD]

Nice to see some progress. Sorry to hear about the tulip panel shifting on you. Where and what wire kit did you purchase? I need to buy one this winter.

[rickpaw]

Nice to see some progress. Sorry to hear about the tulip panel shifting on you. Where and what wire kit did you purchase? I need to buy one this winter.

I bought mine from ebay. There is an aunction for it right now from the same seller. the kit number is 500886.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...m=280418189259

Tu

[-DA]

It's nice to see another '67 Bird around here. Keep up the work. I hope it turns out great.

Have you picked a color yet?

[rickpaw]

It's nice to see another '67 Bird around here. Keep up the work. I hope it turns out great.

Have you picked a color yet?

I have not decided on a color yet. Been thinking about Audi silver or pepper gray metallic (Eleanor Mustang). I'm planning on going to the Portland rod/custom show this coming February to check out different colors on the cars, and hopefully help me decide on the color.

Tu

[rickpaw]

Quick update,
My wife and my 20-month old daughter took off last Sunday to visit her parents in San Antonio, Tx so I've been spending the week in the garage after work working on the car, and made some progress.

Fixed/patched the rust in the lower fender.







Also, fixed the gap between the deck lid and the filler panel, In case you don't remember, the gap looked like this:

Before


I welded on some 1/8" steel rods to close up the gap
After




Some filler work to smooth everything out then it's fixed.

Later,
Tu

[gto406]

Looking great Tu! Keep up the great work.

Happy holidays,
Brian
'72 GTO.

[rickpaw]

Well, here's quick update. I'm almost done with the body work and about to hang the front sheet metal to line everything up. Since the body bushings had been rotted and fell apart, I decided to change them out and one thing led to another, I decided to rebuild the frame and front suspensions while I'm at it. Kind of a nice break from body work

Dropped the front spindle




Sub frame bare, ready to be removed from the body

[rickpaw]

Sub frame back from sand blaster


Dragged the body out of the garage to power wash the bottom




Primed and painted the sub frame with Eastwood chassis paint

[rickpaw]

Painted the firewall and core support underhood black



New Eibach 1" lower spring next to the original spring


Control arms blasted, cleaned, painted and installed with new bushings from Energy Suspension. Installed new 1 1/8 inch sway bar, Global West upper arms and mock up the caliper mounting bracket for the LS1 brakes


My friend machined a couple of bushings to go between the bracket and spindle.


Cleaned and painted the hubs. Hubs got turned down to fit inside the LS1 rotors. Ran into a slight problem tonight. Got the inner seals for the hub. The new ones and the ones from the hubs are completely different. No pictures of the seals. I'm going to take the old seal to the parts store to see if they can find a match.

[68400BIRD]

Great work Tu. How did you mount your front sway bar? It looks like I will have to drill out new holes and shift it back a little on my car to get the end links to be vertical again. My larger sway bar brackets are also to big for my original holes. Any close up pics of that area would be helpful.